On Humanitarian of the Love in A Tale of Two Cities

By David Robertson,2014-09-12 14:29

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On Humanitarian of the Love in A Tale of Two Cities

On Humanitarian of the Love in A Tale of Two Cities

Introduction

Dr. Manette was a famous surgeon in Paris. But he had been unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastile and then had gone to live in England and regained his sanity and happiness. However, some time later, he found that his daughter—Lucie, fell in love with Charles Darnay

who was the Evremnade brothers' descendant. In order not to hurt her and love her, in addition, because Charles loathed his family, and gave up the property of marquis', and made himself independent. Dr. Manette agreed their marriage. After the French Revolution, the marquis brothers were killed. When Charles came back to France to rescue the chamberlain, Mrs. Defarge snitched him. The Doctor tried his best on the run to rescue Charles, but failed. The most powerful proof of Charles' was just the letter of appeal in the Bastile that was written by the Doctor many years ago. In addition, Mrs. Defarge who paid undivided attention to kill Charles was just the youngest sister, who had a narrow escape. However, before the extremity, Sydney Carton who had loved Lucie

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secretly, took measures to change Charles, utilized his alike appearance. The result was Carton himself when to death as a substition for Charles.

1.Definitions and the author's view of humanitarian 1.1Definition to love

Love is an intense feeling of deep affection or fondness for a person or thing; great liking; being inclined, esp. as a habit; great enjoy; find

[1] pleasure

1.2Definition to humanitarian

Humanitarian concerned with improving the lives of mankind and reducing sufferings. esp. by social reform, it refers to people who support

[2] humanitarian behavior.

1.3 The main view of Dickens' humanitarian

Charles Dickens was a typical humanitarian, who expressed his humanitarianism completely by his novels. His humanitarianism focused on love between people. He advised people to be mercy and human, and he was a good example of humanitarian. For an instance, in A Tale of

Two Cities, he showed deep sympathy to the poor. And he also held greatest esteem for the love of the human being. Dickens believed love

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was always more powerful than resentment. In his opinion no matter the person was rich or poor, if he had love could make a more beautiful world. Further more, Dickens firmly believed all contradictions could be solved by the great love of the human being. In shortly, the view of Dickens' humanitarian could be summed up like this: be humanitarian and love others.

2. Humanitarian of the love in A Tale of Two Cities

2.1 Background

The story of A Tale of Two Cities was happened in 19th century

taking the French Revolution as the background; it described the encounter of Dr. Manette and his daughter; disclosing the aristocrats’

inhumanity and incontinence, reflecting necessity of the French Revolution and people's enthusiasm to the Revolution.

In the novel, the poor were far below the upper class, the rich did nothing to help, and was fear that the poor would struggle to better their conditions when they worked as cheap labors. The poor suffered from overcrowding, hunger and long hours' work. Poor peasants were exploited greatly by the aristocrats and they led a terrible life. On the

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contrary, the aristocrats shared luxurious material plundered from the poor. What's more, the upper class bullied or even killed the poor without any mercy. So brave peasants rose up and fought against the

[3] aristocrats. So, "Where there is oppression, there is revolution.''2.2 The aim of the author’s writing

Evidently, Dickens showed much sympathy for the peasants and extremely against the merciless behavior done by the aristocrats, but at the same time, he disliked the revolution. He preferred to take some reforms to reconcile the contradiction between the aristocrats and the peasant. As a matter of fact, the society of England in later 19th century was remarkably like the France of later 18th century. He hoped that the governors in England could learn lessons from the French Revolution. Dickens was afraid that revolution would take place in England. Only from this point, we also can know Dickens was a truly humanitarian. 2.3 Humanitarian on love between characters

2.3.1 About the main characters

Dr. Alexander Manette

Dr. Manette was a brilliant scientist. He had been imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years, drove to be insane. He was jailed because he

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couldn't stand what the Evremande brothers had done to the peasant and he wrote a letter to the king's officials, not for a long time, the Evremande brothers sent him into prison. To our great surprise, later when Darnay was sent to prison, and sentenced to death Dr. Manette forgave the Evremande brothers' fault and tried to influence him to save Darnay. Here, Dr. Manette completely presented humanitarian.

Lucie Manette

Lucie Manette—A young French woman who grew up in England.

She was the ideal Victorian lady, perfect in every way. She was very positive and unselfish, always willing to help others. She had kind sympathetic nature. She also had a compassionate and benevolent character that aids in the resurrection of and Dr. Manette. After Dr. Manette was rescued from prison. He was completely incapable of functioning in the outside world, having entirely forgotten what life outside is, but Lucie loved him unconditionally and helped him regain his sanity. It was a long process, but Lucie was dedicated to her father and assisted in recovering from his crazed state. It's obvious that Lucie's love and determination nurse Dr. Manette back to normality. At the same time, Lucie helped Sydney Carton to resurrected.

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Carton stopped getting drunk and began to lead a respectable life. Because Lucie saw potential for Carton, he was inspired to better his life.

Charles Darnay

Charles Darnay, the descendant of the Evremonde brothers, was born in an aristocratic family. However he hated and criticized what his father and his uncle had done before. So he gave up his Marquis and propriety and changed his name and went to England, living as a teacher. In Dickens' eyes, Darnay was an ideal ''aristocrat", because unlike other Marquis, was humanitarian and he knew he couldn't do something harmful to others, especially the poor, for own purpose.

Sydney Carton

Sydney Carton was a man of good abilities and good emotions, however, at the beginning of the story, Sydney Carton's life had no significance. He changed his life around after a conversation with Lucie in which Carton professed his love to her. Carton described himself as a self-flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature misuse, and states that there was no lope for bettering his life. However, Lucie explained that

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she believed in him and that he was capable of better things. At the end of story, Carton died, but his death brought happiness to Lucie. What he did for Lucie was unforgettable、tearful and bittersweet. He also set up a

good example for the person who is falling in love, and he will be still on everybody's brain.

2.3.2 Love between the main characters

Love is most powerful emotion in one's life. In A Tale of Two Cities,

the author demonstrates how love affects the behavior of the characters. Love can be divided into three kinds: love between relatives; between friends and between lovers.

Love between relatives (father and daughter)

Lucie's love for her father helped him from his imprisonment. For example, when Lucie first meets her father in Paris, Defarge warns her that her father did not ever remember his real name. He called himself by his cell number. This shows that Dr. Manette loses his identity in prison. This also shows that the Marquis treats the prisoners like animals and not people. In addition,. Dr. Manette looked at Lucie's hair and states. "It is

[4][5] the same..." and "...No, no, what is your name, my gentle angle?"

These shows that Lucie's appearance had a charming affect on

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Dr.Manette. Furthermore, when Lucie saw how sick her father was, she told him, "If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and

[6]that I have come here to take you from it..." This shows that Lucie

comfort and reassures her father that his terrible time in prison was over. This also shows the Dr. Manette needs to know that he is finally free from imprisonment. All the above show the love between father and daughter, in another word is a love between relatives.

Love between friends

Sydeny Carton had decided how he would save Darnay from the guillotine; he walked confidently like a man who knew what he was doing. His dead was high, his shoulders straight. It seemed that he had finally found something important to do in his life. This shows that Carton had a plan to save Darnay and believed that his plan will succeed. Clearly, the strength of Carton's love for the Darnay’s prevails over the

weakness of the French peasants' hatred for the nobles.

Love between lovers

Carton was the first person who offered his cognations to the newly---married pair when they came home. There was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him. This show that Carton's love to Lucie was lofty.

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In fact, Carton loved Lucie deeply, but after he knew that Lucie loved Darnay, he never exacted anything, just kept the love in mind. When Darnay was send to prison, Carton made a plan to rescue him without any hesitation, although the result was that he would pay out his life. This wasn't a thing that everyone could do, but he did it. For love, he sacrificed everything, every life. "Shall I take her to a coach? I shall

[7]never feel her weight.""He entered the court-yard and remained there

for a few moments alone, loping up at the light in the window of her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a

[8]Farewell." All these happened before he carried out his plan, in another word was before he died. This shows how much he loved Lucie. Because all Carton did was that he hoped Lucie could live a happy life. Love is so grand, beautiful and pure. You should manage to make her happy if you love her. This was the top of love, just like Carton did. When he saw Lucie lived a happy life and peacefully, he said he's got no regrets. In addition, it embodied that: Love one, sometimes, you wouldn't always marry her, and just pray a happy life to her was OK.

To sum up, according to Dickens' view of humanitarian, main characters in A Tale of Two Cities, no matter which class they belonged to, were full of sympathetic and mercy. No matter what relations

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between them, they were full of love. Of course, each love was not the same, but all of them would like to sacrifice on love. Through the love, we can also see the humanitarian.

Conclusion:

In the novel, Dickens set many examples for people to follow: They never lost faith in the power of love. The love gives them the strength to fight and defeat hatred. Through them, he advocates the principles of love, self-sacrifice and independence.

At the same time, through the love between the main characters, we know clearly the view of Dickens' humanitarian is positive and advanced. Just as we can't deny that the position of humanitarian is important in Dickens' novels, we also can't deny that some of Dickens' views about humanitarian are still worth appreciating and leaning today. That is, we should agree that humanitarian is important to us.